What to Eat Every Day: A Month of Frugal Meals

I have planned menus for the duration of my marriage (nearly 31 years). Every Saturday morning, I do a couple of things. First, I make a fresh cup of coffee. Then I get out a piece of paper and a pencil, and I start planning my week’s menus.

The following method works for me and has enabled me to stay within a household grocery budget for years. I’m a bit of a foodie, so it’s really important to me that food tastes really great. We could eat more cheaply, but to me, food is one of life’s great pleasures. It is also important to me that meals I cook are family-friendly and both the husband and daughter will eat them happily. (See also: How to Grocery Shop for Five on $100 a Week)

A few general notes about grocery shopping:

I rarely use coupons, because I have learned that I’ll just forget them at the register. If you can remember to use them, bonus points. I do, however, participate in my store’s discount program, so I receive 5% off every two weeks on my receipt.

I do look at the grocery ads each week to see what is on sale, and I try to buy things we will use.

Once every two months, we do a big Costco shopping. (We would go more often, but our nearest Costco is two hours away.)

I shop at the same store every week because I know where everything is. Time is money, right?

Buy seasonal fruits and vegetables.

When I learned to cook back in the Stone Age, we were taught that a balanced meal was comprised of a protein, a starch, a vegetable or two, and fruit. I’ve evolved a little from that, but for the most part, that’s the way I roll. While I am not a nutritionist, I believe the meals presented here are pretty nutritionally sound.

You will notice that several of the “proteins” come up more than once during the month. For instance, in this plan you will see that fish comes up several times in different forms. However, it’s all from the same bag of (frozen) fish. Buying in bulk is cheaper, but gang, we have to use it up. On the subject of proteins, you will notice that a few of the recipes can easily be made vegetarian, such as the split-pea soup, chili, and spring rolls. Similarly, you may “lighten” recipes by using turkey burger instead of hamburger or egg substitute instead of scrambled eggs.

For purposes of brevity, I need to assume that you know how to make chicken stock or various types of potatoes. If not, the Internet has a wealth of recipes and video demonstrations, and I hope you aren’t daunted by the prospect of picking up a new cooking skill.

I also advocate large batch cooking and freezing portions. I work full-time, and on those nights when I can pop half of a lasagna into the oven or defrost some frozen soup, I think that’s pretty great. This post also presumes that you have access to a microwave at work for re-heating leftovers.

I am sure you will need to make some substitutions here and there. Keep in mind when you do that to look ahead on the menu plan — because we are using up leftovers here, your substitution might need to be worked into a meal on another date.

Week One

Notes about this week's menu:

After shopping on Saturday, make a batch of hard-boiled eggs, wash and re-pack lettuce greens, and make a double batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Shrimp is affordable if you buy it frozen and cook/clean it yourself.

Yogurt is cheaper if you buy the large tubs and repack into small plastic containers.

Dinner: Tilapia with tomatoes and rice; broccoli (save leftover rice and broccoli). To make the tilapia, spray a baking dish with non-stick spray. Add tilapia filets and sprinkle with oregano, salt, and pepper. Top with sliced tomatoes, bread crumbs, and lots of parmesan. Bake at 375 for thirty minutes.

Dinner: Shrimp salad with home-made croutons, hard-cooked eggs, and avocado; French bread. To make the croutons, defrost leftover French bread and cut into cubes. Heat olive oil on stove and add bread; sprinkle with garlic salt. Toss until crunchy; drain on paper towels.

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Guest #1

I love the meal plan but I wish every week started with some items to make sure are on your grocery list.

I agree with you, I love the meal plan as well but remembering all of the items when hitting the store is the key. When you don't have all the ingredients, it misses the point a bit. Overall a fantastic article.

Hi, Mandy! Thank you for your comment. I agree about the freezer cooking, too. It's so great to just have something already made - toss a salad and DONE. Regarding the calendar format --I originally had the post in table format, which I loved, but the WB software freaked out about it. If I do this again I will see if there isn't some way we can do that. I agree, I like to see it all laid out. Will look into it. Thanks for writing!

Wow, what a list! I just pinned this for future reference. I'll be trying out some of your menu ideas shortly. I also do menu planning on Saturday. I brainstorm from a master list of go-to meals my family loves, then on Sunday I place my online shopping order. ;)

This is perfect! I find it so hard to create a meal plan and I spend way to much on food because I go about things unplanned. Not only is this list a money saver, but it looks really healthy too. I'm going to use this list to help create my own and hopefully it is something I can stick with.

I love meal planning. It makes everything run so much smoother. I can never understand why some people don't like leftovers. I'll gladly eat a good meal again. I want to try a breakfast strata after reading this.:)

Hi, guest. Yes, I could, and I would love to. I am looking into it! Thanks for the comment!

Guest #16

You do realise that there are vegetarian alternatives for almost every single meat product known to man, don't you? It's not really fair to ask someone to edit their blog to add the words "substitute" or "tofu" after or in place of the meat used.

Boring. Menu filled with carbs; rice, chips, bread. I'm all about fresh food and never let anything sit more than 2 days in my fridge. Sorry, but this menu is repetitive, hardly contains a balanced meal. Who eats fried rice for breakfast? Weird!